Friday, November 20, 2009

Drunk and Disorderly

I took cold medicine this morning. Real cold medicine. Cold and Sinus +10, now with extra Stupid Sauce. I did so because of two things: I had a fever of 103.1, which I worried might actually cook what few gray cells I have left in my brain.

And, my sinuses were threatening to explode, enveloping the entire San Joaquin valley in a slimy mushroom cloud.

The cold medicine has not made what I would call significant improvements to my sinuses. The fever is way down, but the sinuses are still threatening mass destruction.

I had to email my team and bow out of a day’s work today, because I realized after a few (ahem) interesting moments “working” that billing for my time today is the moral equivalent of walking into a branch with a gun and yelling, “PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG!!!”

It would be robbery, pure and simple.

The honest, decent thing to do is let them know I’m too drunk on cough medicine sick to work, and take the rest of the day off. Or at least as much of the day as is required for this flip-flammin’ stuff to wear off so I can think straight.

I don’t wanna, because next week I’ve got three days off due to Thanksgiving, which is going to make for a very light paycheck as it is…and it will be the only paycheck between now and Christmas, and I was rather hoping to have, you know, more cash in the days leading up to the Festive Occasion so that I could do something wild and crazy, like maybe buy presents for my family.

{grumble! grouse!}

Eh, oh well. You know? It could be a lot worse. I could be getting this sick next week, for example. (Because nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving!” like the person serving up turkey sneezing Black Death all over it. Would you like extra germs with your gravy, mom…?)

Or I could have no paycheck at all.

Or I could have no cold medicine at all. I could be lying in bed gasping out my last, waiting for the Grim Reaper because I had no method to get my fever down, or because I couldn’t get my airways un-inflamed enough to breathe.

Lots of human beings have died that way, when something as simple as a danged aspirin might have saved them.

Me, I have cold medicine that does (all kvetching to the contrary aside) clear up my passages enough that I can get air into my lungs, and wrestled my fever down from ‘!!!’ to ‘!’…and in a little bit, I’ll truck on over to my doctor’s office where I will probably be given a prescription for antibiotics because it’s more and more likely that I don’t have a cold, but {GASP!} the flu (oh. the horror.)

I’m getting the cheap stuff, though. We already discussed this on the phone. None of that $106-a-pop stuff for this little chicken, ooooooh no. Give me the $6 pills, if you please! As long as they work eventually, I’m fine with that…

My doctor, he loves me. Seriously. How many doctors have patients they can have the following conversation with on the phone:

Him: You need to come in. Today.

Me: Wellllllllll…can’t we just, you know, phone it in?

Him: No. I need to see you in person before I can prescribe anything. Makes me feel important. Humor me. (I love this guy. He really does say things like that.)

Me: Ya know, people survive the flu without antibiotics all the time. It’s just the flu. I know it’s just the regular old flu. If it’s even the flu. It’s probably just a cold. Seriously? I think it’s just a cold. I can just wait it out. Never mind. I’m good. (He and I both know I’m actually resisting coming in because he’s going to want to do blood work and I have an unnatural fear of needles. The very thought of them makes me queasy. Ugh.)

Him: {heavy sigh} Just come in. If you have the flu, the antibiotics will cut not only your downtime, but reduce the chances you’ll give it to someone else.

Me: Welllllll, OK, I’ll come in – but if you’re going to give me antibiotics, I want Plain Old Pills, the ones that are six bucks for the whole course…not that hundred buck stuff you guys are prescribing for the kids right now.

Him: {REALLY heavy sigh} The newer stuff works up to two days faster, you know.

Him: {pounds head on desk a few times to make the pain go away} OK. Whatever. Cheap stuff. Got it. Made a note. See you this afternoon.

Me: Okey-Dokey, Boss, see you in a couple hours!

Him: {begins sobbing quietly as he hangs up the phone}

See? He loves me. Especially when I then don’t take my medication on time or as prescribed or until gone, then storm in yelling that my symptoms came right back! What kind of hack business is he running here, anyway…?!

(Someday, that man is going to prescribe me cyanide and kill me dead. And there isn’t a jury in the world that will convict him for it, either.)

ANYWAY. Just another fun-filled day of excitement around here, huh? I’ve got a cold or the flu or something, there’s a storm brewing outside, the cat is snoring on the bed…it’s a never-ending rollercoaster of thrills, let-me-tell-you…

I never get flu or cold without my sinuses and then my chest becoming bacterial pertri dishes. My doc prescriibes antibiiotics because he knows that iotherwise, we'll be dealing with brochitis and a hacking couch for weeks and weeks and weeks. I suspect Tama, that your doc has a similar experience set for you?

Yeah, I have a history of this kind of stuff - just about any time I have a cough or a sniffle that lasts more than a day or two, I end up on antibiotics for an infection *somewhere.* Nose, chest, throat...I don't think they're ever actually GONE. It's like they just go into hiding when I take antibiotics, waiting for the next time my resistence is down, bwahahaha.

I once got strep throat six times in one year. SIX. TIMES. That's, like, one month on...one month off...one month on...one month off...hellish.

I guessed. I have a friend who kept getting strep and they did a head mri and found a nasty little abcess hiding there happilly producing bacteria. They went after it (sinus area) and six seeks of antibiotics later, she was much improved.Me, it's just what great grandmother would call "that weak chest that runs in your father's family".Garlic does help - expectorant and antibiotic properties.